Hanamaki Ichiko attends university with her childhood friend Hino who joined a “Okunezato Occult Club”. The club leader posts on a forum for everyone to have an offline meetup at the Okunezato and Hino invites Ichiko to come with him to check it out. Ichiko’s older brother Hanate disappeared a year ago after going to the village so she decides to come along in hopes to find clues on his whereabouts. Little does Ichiko know that this isn’t her first trip to Okunezato as well as the dangers and mysteries surrounding the small mountain town. Once she and Hino arrive at the Furinkan inn, they meet up with the rest of the members. After Ichiko takes a part time job at the inn during her stay,  she starts to recall memories of her childhood. Major spoilers ahead so please skip to my final thoughts to avoid as usual.

Kagutsuchi Hino – Hino is a closet otaku who loves collecting cute things (like mascots) so he goes nuts over Okunezato’s mascot the “Okunepanda”. 😂 He’s also the childhoo-….wait a minute, everyone in the game is a childhood friend and most of them have loved her a long time so forget it. The harem was there since Ichiko was a loli 😂. There was an incident in the past where Hino couldn’t protect her and he has deep regrets about it. He met her when they were young and wanted to impress her so she would smile for him like she did for her oniichan. So then one day after school he brought her to some abandoned shack calling it a haunted house. However instead of ghosts, inside lived a wanted serial killer. The killer threw the gun at Hino telling him to shoot him or he’d strangle Ichiko to death.  She ended up passing out from the suffocating and that’s when her brother showed up and shot the guy. After this Hino got PTSD of guns and Ichiko lost the memory from her mind (this will be explained later). Her brother got mad at Hino for not “protecting her” and told him to stay away from his sister. He also warned Hino that Ichiko is a target for criminals but didn’t say why. Ichiko thanks him for protecting her all this time and hugs him. Unfortunately just as he’s about to confess his long time love for her, someone shoots him in the leg. ((유∀유|||)) The hotel owner tells everyone to go back home and says Ichiko isn’t allowed to stay with Hino while he recovers.

Kagura, the photographer offers to take him back to Tokyo when he recovers and just then they discover an anonymous letter left in his hospital room. The letter tells Ichiko the shrine from her dreams is behind the barricaded tunnel where entry is prohibited. It says to come alone the next day at 4pm and tell no one or else they’d kill her brother. So she goes to the shrine and finds her brother’s old clothes inside. Just then a masked guy shows up revealing himself to be her former strangler from the haunted house incident. He babbles how he hurt others to get Ichiko alone and that her brother’s been dead. After he answers her question he tells her to die, and just then Hino shows up from the hospital and punches him away.  Happy End: The killer throws the gun at Hino telling him to shoot him,  just like many years ago. When Hino finally makes the choice to shoot him,  turns out the gun has no bullets. Suddenly Karasuma awakens and uses some kind of a shrine spell making both himself and the criminal disappear. Some time passes and after Hino recovers, they set up a grave for Ichiko’s brother. After this Hino confesses his love for Ichiko and they make out by the lake, before leaving Okunezato. Normal End: Hino sacrifices his life to save Ichiko’s. (More like bad end ??? Although I guess in the actual bad ends Ichiko just dies.) I kinda feel bad for Hino he had the least revealing route even though he was probably the most “involved” guy in Ichiko’s life （；^ω^）….

Amari Isora – Childhood friend #2! Isora is younger than Ichiko because he’s a second year high school student. He was born and raised in Okunezato but left town when he went to middle school in order to learn to be a chef. His parents used to own a restaurant but it went out of business after his father died and his mother couldn’t run it alone. She ended up closing it and then working at the hotel – until she got sick and hospitalized,  and that’s when Isora took over her position. His goal is to become a proper chef so he can “free” his mother from responsibilities and take care of her. One night someone attacks Ichiko as she’s walking outside on some isolated path between houses, and basically beats up her feet with rocks to the point that she passes out from the pain. Isora finds her and takes her to his uguu dungeon of love where there’s only a door, some pipes and no windows. There’s a bathroom and kitchen so you can “live” there in case of emergency (like an earthquake etc.) He tells her to stay here until he makes sure it’s “safe” for her to leave. At first Ichiko thinks nothing of it, and he brings her 3 meals a day he cooks for her, and she thinks he’s so nice for taking care of her. 😂  Because of this Ichiko completely loses track of time, has no idea if it’s night or day, or how long she’s been in there…but when she tries to question things, Isora unveils his yandere side again. ＼(^o^)／

After a while it hits Ichiko that maybe the one who attacked her and locked her up here is all Isora. The day she went out, a lot of cafe guests saw her leave, but Isora claimed that there was “no one at the cafe that day”. She didn’t tell anyone where she was going – meaning that Isora basically stalked her and waited for the right opportunity. Also he then had a slip of the tongue saying “I wish your injury was your hands instead of your legs so I could spoon feed you” ＼(^o^)／＼(^o^)／＼(^o^)／＼(^o^)／ Happy End: Ichiko decides to trust Isora anyway, and he eventually moves into that room and sleeps there with her (on the couch). Just then the masked murderer shows up and because Isora left the door open, he gets in and attacks Ichiko. Turns out he had setup Isora on everything, including the cat poisoning. Before he can kill her, Isora comes back and stabs him. They get into a scuffle and Isora’s arm gets stabbed but his rage for hurting Ichiko overpowers and he beats the living crap outta the other dude 😂💦. After the serial killer is knocked out, Ichiko is horrified at the fact that Isora’s hand has been stabbed because it’s his valuable “tool” for being a baker. He then tells her that he met Ichiko when they were kids in this town (she was staying with relatives while her parents were overseas), and she ate his baked donuts when nobody else would. After that she ate all the stuff he made for her every day, but one day he had made a strawberry tart for her.

At the time Ichiko said she liked strawberries, but when she ate his tart she got really sick because he used a rotten strawberry without realizing it. She ended up getting hospitalized for food poisoning, but after getting out of the hospital she apologized for vomiting his tart and asked him to make stuff for her again. (This is also why Ichiko got a hatred for strawberries in all the other routes). That’s when Isora fell in love with her and vowed to become the best pastry chef there ever was. So then they make out while the criminal and the shed randomly burns in the background cause the candles inside fell over. Isora passes out so Ichiko realizes this is not the time to smooch, drags him out of the room and outside where they run into Yasu who takes them to the hospital. Ichiko finds out that everyone was told that Ichiko is in a “safe place” but wouldn’t tell her where she is because he didn’t trust anyone in case they were the serial killer. Ichiko visits Isora at the hospital, and finds out that his hand will be able to recover so he can cook again. He apologizes for locking her up in that uguu dungeon of love because he just wanted to protect her. He then kisses promising to make her a delicious tart when he is able to. (Also it appears Ichiko has gotten over her strawberry ptsd.) Normal End: When Ichiko asks why Isora’s been keeping her locked up and won’t let her out, and he rages the criminal could be at the hotel and they can’t trust anyone. She agrees to stay with him, and after the attack by the serial killer, she gets out with Isora and he gets hospitalized after being badly hurt protecting her. Hino visits Isora in the hospital with Ichiko and thanks him for protecting her. Ichiko thanks him as well for protecting her, and tells him she’s going back to her town. I’m kinda glad that Isora ended up being innocent and that the locking up was to protect her – but I guess the yandere hater in me still felt rather unpleasant because of the way he acted about it. I’m sure she would have been perfectly understandable if he just explained to her that some dude’s trying to stab her open like a pinata.

Tatehira Sousuke – Sousuke is a turbo nerd medical student who is a germaphobe, and hates sharing food/drinks with others. I know dat feel bro. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  Despite this, he tries to uh get over this because he kinda takes a liking to Ichiko and actually they DID meet in the village in the past though it was a one time thing so not sure if it’s legit enough to be considered “childhood friends”. Sosuke tends to rarely smile because to him any kind of smiling is considered fake and obnoxious, but he offers to help Ichiko find her brother. Sousuke lived in Okunezato until he left to go to a high school outside of town. He didn’t want to return to the town or have his family know that he did, but he got curious to see how the town changed. He cut ties with his family which is why he stayed at the inn instead of with them. Turns out that the dead body they ran upon at the shrine the night of the festival, was his father’s. The next night Sousuke asks Ichiko to sit with him in the lounge and tells her the story about his dad. One day he followed his dad at night,  saw him go into a small restaurant, pull a man out, drag him to the mountains while saying he would “exterminate him”. Sousuke was too terrified to follow the whole way but he heard the man scream until he went silent. ( ¯−¯٥) After that Sousuke got lost, and his dad found him,  but they barely spoke since and not a word of the incident was ever mentioned. Sousuke was shocked that despite killing someone,  his dad led a normal life like nothing had happened. Sousuke figured there must be a reason his kind father would ever do this.

Sousuke also tells Ichiko about how when he was younger he went through the forbidden tunnel and ended up in a field of purple flowers. While there, he saw a man that looked like a zombie and accidentally made eye contact. Terrified that this dude was gonna kill him,  Sousuke ran dafuq back through the tunnel and never told anyone what he saw. However he does mention that based on Ichiko’s description it seems like it might have been her brother – but he has no solid proof. (But as we will find out later, it really was.) Another murder happens so Sousuke goes to the scene,  but worried about him Ichiko follows him there. Unfortunately despite her best efforts…she gets lost in the mountains, but luckily she runs into Sousuke. They head in deeper, without realizing the serial killer is hot on their heels. They run into the black clothed ninjas who mention his dad’s name.  Sousuke then comes out and they end up telling the 2 of them to come see them at night if they want to know the “truth”. That night they end up meeting with the leader of the Murakumo family,  Yuzuki’s father,  Kyouji. He explains the ninjas are there in place of “police” cause Yasu doesn’t count. Their real job is to handle “burial of the dead” and to basically kill the “living dead”. The living dead are the zombies terrorizing the town but most people don’t know about them thanks to these ghost buster ninjas. Apparently these zombies come out every year around the end rainy season in July and they are all former residents of Okunezato. They run around looking for blood and murder random people. This year there were 3 victims and including Sousuke’s dad, all of them were part of the ghost buster ninja group. Kyouji then asks Sousuke to join them to catch the killer zombie to take revenge for his father.

He then shows Ichiko a diary they found in the mountains and it has her brother’s name on it – Hanate. They figured that the zombie must have killed the owner of the diary but could not find the body. He then tells her she can join them as well and take revenge for her brother. He warns them that the zombie will come after Ichiko (but doesn’t explain why.) And of course that night right before going to bed, Ichiko gets attacked.  Fortunately when the clock makes a noise she manages to break free and run to her room. Sousuke hears her scream and comes to her room.  She opens the door and jumps into his arms horrified at what happened. The other guys wake up but figure they’d ask details in the morning leaving her and Sousuke alone in her room.  She tells him that all the doors at the inn are locked,  which means the perpetrator is someone from the inn itself. One thing leads to another and Sousuke ends up hugging Ichiko in bed and confessing that he’s in love with her (and a kiss cg was desperately needed in this scene uwaaaaa (*´ε｀*)). They both decide that they’re too involved and must join forces with the ninja ghostbusters in order to put a stop to the serial killer zombie. Happy End: Everyone at the inn (Except Toa who returned home) have a debate on who may be the killer amongst them.  In the end all signs point to Kagura, the photographer. He ends up spilling the evidence on himself when he mentions the clock striking 12 – the sound that saved her allowing her to break free and escape. Realizing he’s caught in his lies, Kagura stops hiding and whips out a knife. Fortunately Yasu had already called the ghostbuster ninjas but Kagura manages to wrangle free and lunge at Ichiko. Sousuke gets in the way and gets stabbed in the arm protecting her. Several days later Sousuke says it’s possible that his father wasn’t killed by Kagura. His arm recovers because the wound isn’t deep and the 2 of them go into the mountains.  He then reveals that he met a lost girl who reminds him of Ichiko when he was young at this same place. They kiss and then go through the cave and he shows her the place with the purple flowers. Normal End: Sousuke and Ichiko go their separate ways, but not without him leaving her his phone number to get together at a later date.  (∗ˊᵕ`∗)

Murakumo Yuzuki – Yuzuki was supposed to be the leader of the ninja ghostbusters team since he’s the “heir” of the Murakumo family BUT he got booted off for letting an undead woman go. During the summer festival,Yuzuki gets sick and despite his protests, Ichiko takes care of him cause she just can’t leave a weakened ikemen alone. ԅ(,,´﹃`,,*ԅ) After he gets better, she runs into him “on the job” in his ninja suit but he tells her to forget what she saw and not tell anyone. When she goes into his private room the following day,  she finds Karasuma has been going through Yuzuki’s stuff while he’s away.  Karasuma then uses a sleeping gas and kidnaps Ichiko bringing her to some abandoned broken down shack in the woods. By the time she wakes up, Karasuma isn’t there and shortly after Yuzuki rescues her. Just then Karasuma returns, beats up Yuzuki and ties him up revealing the truth to Ichiko. He tells Ichiko about the ninja ghostbusters and how Yuzuki, their leader, killed his wife Tsuzuri. Karasuma claims that it’s just a stupid witch hunt and the people they’ve killed were innocent humans. Yuzuki speaks of what happened that night, and says that Tsuzuri admitted to being a zombie but said she wouldn’t kill people. For her last request she asked for some change so she could call her husband. Yuzuki felt bad and gave her change and she called him. That’s when it was revealed that she had actually died from an illness the year before.

She just wanted to tell her husband goodbye and that she enjoyed her life with him. She asked him to forget about her and move on with his life and congratulated him on the release of his first novel. Unfortunately one of Yuzuki’s ninja people called his name so he had to hang up. He then ran off trying to hide Tsuzuri and she told Yuzuki to kill her cause her “job” was over. Despite Yuzuki’s efforts to save her, the other ninjas got her instead. Due to this,  Yuzuki was kicked off from being the leader and demoted to running the inn. After Karasuma babbles that he can’t live without his wife,  Yuzuki rages at him that his wife held back her murderous rampage just so she could tell her husband to live on without her. After hearing everything, Karasuma lets Yuzuki go. On the way home Yuzuki explains that these zombies need to accept their death or else they continue to spawn. He then offers to help Ichiko find her brother and they indirectly admit to having feelings for each other.  (*σ´∀`)σThey go to Yasu who tells them about how a year ago some outsider came to this town but moved around as if he knew the place. The ninja ghostbusters got suspicious of him so they followed him around until they saw he went to the forbidden purple flower valley. They followed him there but by the time they got there he had vanished,  only leaving his diary behind. A few days later they run upon a dead body (Sousuke’s father). Yuzuki goes to take care of this and that night he asks Ichiko to come see his father per request. While there, the dad rages calling Yuzuki a worthless loser,  Ichiko fires back saying Yuzuki cares a lot more about the dead and sending them “back” rather than “exterminating” them.  This makes Yuzuki all ずきゅーーーん ( ื▽ ื♡) ﾎﾎﾎ。

Happy End: On the night of Toa’s concert,  Ichiko is alone at the inn when Kagura returns. He shows her a photo where her eyes are red and says that she’s a rare albino due to the way her eyes look in photos. He also says this is why the ninja ghostbusters have been monitoring her from the shadows since she got here. He then says by killing her, he can get eternal life. Fortunately Yuzuki saves her along with the help of one of the ninjas (who is actually Sousuke. ) They take Kagura to the woods to exterminate him cause he was a terrible person who just wanted to kill, unlike Tsuzuri. Kagura admits that he’s killed a bunch of women,  but he wasn’t the one who killed Sousuke’s father cause he has no interest in men.  Also cause Sousuke isn’t good at tying people up,  Kagura frees his hands and stabs Yuzuki. Before he can kill Ichiko, Karasuma shows up,  stabs him and knocks him away.  They then use salt and set Kagura on fire to finally put him out of his misery. Sousuke runs to get his medical tools to help stop the bleeding while Ichiko continues to talk to him to keep him “awake”. Karasuma says he helped to repay Yuzuki for giving his dead wife change to call him and congratulate him on publishing his book. After confessing his love & kissing her, Yuzuki blacks out and eventually so does Ichiko due to a fever.  She wakes up in the hospital 2 days later finding out the concert was cancelled. Yuzuki then awakens and Ichiko runs into his room and hugs him. She tells him she found out about her brother’s death,  and Yuzuki offers to fill the gap in her heart by being with her forever. He also tells her that if he died his regret would be not being able to kiss her every day and they smooch in his hospital bed 😅. Normal End: Yuzuki dies and the town writes it off as an accident in the mountains rather than because he protected Ichiko. She ends up staying at the inn a bit longer to mourn his death. I think Ichiko was probably at her best in this route, rather than the usual damsel-in-distress role she had in others so she gets mad props. Wish her personality was more consistent with the one here! Also MikiShin sounded so much like his Hijikata here I laughed.😂

Kushinada Toa – Who knew that the true end of the game was tied behind Toa! Toa is a cat magnet and wherever he goes cats jump all over him. He has poor vision and wears loose baggy clothes as well as a big pair of glasses. He’s also a dojikko who constantly trips and falls a lot. He’s also childhood friend #3, and Ichiko is basically the inspiration for his entire reason for living….well until he died of course. That’s right Toa has 2 secrets, 1. he’s a famous pop star named A-TO who decided to go solo after disbanding his popular group AUK ZERO, but unfortunately 2. he’s now a zombie because he died in a car accident on the way to Okunezato. When he meets everyone as well as Ichiko at the inn, he’s already a zombie but nobody knows this until the truth end. There used to be a popular hot spring at Okunezato but it got shut down cause some old fart with a heart problem died there. They blamed the hot spring owners, people stopped coming and it shut down.  The child of the owners then decided to draw a mascot to try to bring back customers so he drew the Okunepanda mascot. Unfortunately it didn’t really catch on and it didn’t save in inn. However thanks to it becoming popular online it’s become a popular mascot but the hot spring has since closed and no one knows what happened to the artist. Toa later reveals that the child was him and the story is about his family. The Murakumo family (Yuzuki’s parents) ordered their inn to get destroyed and so they had to move. To this day,  Toa hates Yuzuki and his family. Toa then admits he lived in this town until middle school when moved around the age of 14. He had bad memories but when he returned now 6 years later he realized he missed it. He also had a  trauma was being forced on the school swim team but not being able to swim at all during a relay race. Toa tells Ichiko how the Furinkan inn is the only “hotel” and hot spring left in this town.  A lot of people moved out and there’s an area full of abandoned houses where the popular old hot spring used to be.

Because of this,  Toa suggests that it’s likely Ichiko’s bro stayed at Furinkan during his visit. So one night she finds him without his glasses and realizes he’s the famous idol A-TO who was supposed to hold a concert at Okunezato. He purposely doesn’t wear contacts so he can’t see the audience on stage so he can be less nervous at concerts. He liked to sing but there were no karaoke places nearby so he would sing behind the shrine. When he got accepted as an idol that’s when he decided to leave this town. After 5 years with his group Auk Zero, he decided to disband the group and go solo. So for his first solo concert he decided to hold the concert at his old middle school. A few days later,  Toa’s manager Makiko says she wants to cancel his concert because of the multiple murders going on in town.  He’s against this cause this is his only chance before he gets busy with recording his solo album and going on a live tour. Ichiko asks what she can do to help and he asks her to stay by his side because he loves her. Makiko tells Ichiko to stay away from Toa cause he’s just playing with her feelings and just likes to flirt with girls. 😔 Ichiko takes these words to heart and tells him she can’t see him anymore because he won’t give her a legit reason of why he fell in love with her so fast. So then Toa goes mia and everyone runs around looking for him. Worried,  Ichiko runs to the forbidden tunnel to look for him and finds him there. He admits he got into a fight with his manager because of Ichiko. He then tells Ichiko about the scandal he had with another idol in the past. Newspapers rumored them dating, but none of it was true because he’s had a crush on someone else since childhood (aka Ichiko lol).  The girl then stalked him to his apartment and they had to get her agency to keep her away from him. Ichiko then asks him why he picked her and he said that she was the only one kind to him in his disheveled glasses look. Suddenly ninja ghostbusters surround them and pin Toa to the ground looking for “zombie markings” on his back. Sousuke shows up, and upon seeing him the ninjas let Toa silently go (since he’s the son of their former leader Shinryuu.) Toa then apologizes to his manager for running away,  but asks her not to be mean to Ichiko. After this incident though, Makiko decides it’s safer to cancel his concert.

Happy End: That night Ichiko gets a letter from Toa asking her to meet him at the peak where they watched the fireworks.  When she gets there, instead it’s the serial killer who tricked her and wrote the letter. Just then Toa shows up and punches the guy and not too soon later Yasu and the police show up. The rest of the “police” are the ninjas who attacked Toa from before. The serial killer escapes and the ninja squad chases him,  while Yasu takes Toa and Ichiko back to the inn. Yasu then asks Toa for his autograph. 😂😂😂 Makiko says she’ll tell people at the middle school that the concert is cancelled cause the killer’s still on the loose. She asks Ichiko to take care of Toa’s wounds, from the fight with the killer, in the meantime. He then goes with Ichiko to the Okune shrine and reveals that they met 12 years ago at this shrine.  He was the one who gave her the marble that she keeps on her as a lucky charm. She wished the same as him – to see her parents. (He was living with his grandparents cause his parents died when he was really young.) They hid behind the shrine together cause he was afraid that bullies would come after him. He fell and tripped and a bunch of marbles flew out of his pocket so he gave her one because she didn’t bully him and praised his singing. He says he’s loved her got 12 years and they kiss at the shrine, then both leave town. Toa leaves a letter behind for Ichiko that she reads 2 days later where he reveals that he was undead and that his body is at the bottom of the river. He tells her he loves her and that he will go to the tallest hill in town to look at it one last time before he moves on to the afterlife. 😭😭 True End: After Kagura is arrested,  everyone gets together with Yasu to discuss the fact that the killer of Sousuke’s dad is someone else. Kagura says that the living dead will show up at Furinkan, aiming to kill Ichiko. Yuki then reveals that he’s the leader of the Okunezato Unsolved  Mystery club and he declares a disbanding as of today. Yuzuki reveals that zombies have a purple mark on their back which is a true sign. They get one every time they kill a person.

The other method is fire – the zombies are afraid of it and just a slight burn will kill them. They have Isora bring out some matches and have everyone just lightly burn themselves to confirm they aren’t zombies. Yuki gives everyone one more chance to confess and Yua admits that she’s the zombie and admits to killing Sousuke’s father – without knowing he was the father. She says that Sousuke’s father followed her behind the shrine on the night of the festival and as he attacked her, she killed him in self defense. Yuki continues his investigation and concludes that Yua pushed Sousuke’s dad off a cliff. Yuzuki asks Yua why she came back from the dead in hopes to have her move on before the ghostbusters exterminate her. Yuzuki then realizes that Yua is lying to protect someone because he stabs himself and she just winces at the sight of blood. Meanwhile Toa screams in horror because turns out he’s the real zombie. Yua apologizes  to Toa for not being able to protect her. The reason he didn’t have any marks on his back is because he never killed anyone and planned to quietly disappear from everyone. He reveals himself as A-TO to everyone and says that he was headed to Okunezato, fell asleep at the wheel and drove himself off the bridge. He then awoke in the field of purple flowers and realized he was dead with the urge to kill people. He then realized he took the shape of a hobo because that’s kind of clothes he felt comfortable in ( it varies based on the undead person). He then made his way to Furinkan and that’s when he met up with everyone. The only person he could tell was his older twin  sister – Yua. They don’t look alike because they are fraternal twins (2 different eggs). They also reveal an ancient tradition dating back to the edo period existed in this town to separate twins at birth. Toa stayed with his parents but Yua was moved to her maternal grandparents house and they were raised separately as strangers. However their parents would let them secretly meet 1-2 times a month. After their parents died,  their meetings basically came to a halt.

Once they got cell phones in middle school they became like bffs and would come to each other for advice.  That’s why Yua immediately believed him when he said he’s a zombie. He admitted to wanting to kill but refused to go through with it. Yua then said if he needed to live on to just kill her instead because he’s a famous idol and many people love him. Toa refused because he would no longer be himself. His last unfinished business is to perform at the concert and then he’d move on. He also admits that despite his cravings to kill, by hugging Ichiko for some reason those urges would go away. Yua then admits the night of the summer festival she was watching Toa and Ichiko’s date to make sure it went ok since Ichiko was his first love.  She then saw Sousuke’s dad following the 2 of them so she followed him too. Shinryuu then asked her what she’s doing there and she ended up tricking him into admitting that he’s following Toa around because he thinks he may be a zombie. Yua panicked thinking her brother was gonna get hurt so she tricked him again and pushed him off the cliff – but the face of him falling off is permanently burned in her mind. She feels shitty knowing now that she killed his father.  Sousuke then reveals that he saw his father kill a zombie when he was young – and that zombie turns out to be Isora’s father. Isora then said he recalls what he thought was a dream – where he and his mom were eating dinner, but suddenly their dad walked through the door and suddenly the ghost buster ninjas burst in and pulled him out of the house. Isora adds that his father said “forgive me” when he came back because he regretted leaving his wife and child behind. Everyone agrees they are victims of this town and decide to change it, starting with making sure Toa can perform his concert. Despite all the preparations, Yasu betrays everyone and last minute threatens to turn Toa over to the ninja ghostbusters. Just then Yua shows up and tries to stop Yasu but accidentally gets stabbed in the stomach by his knife. She begs Ichiko to make sure Toa can perform his 1 song. After singing his song, Toa says goodbye and vanishes into stardust. It cuts off there but curious whether or not Yua died. 😯

Hanate – Unfortunately Hanate’s route is just one giant text dump and was kind of an awkward way to end the game. I really wish they had focused and spent more time showing actual scene flashbacks with him and Ichiko. So yea Hanate’s been imprisoned by the ninja ghostbusters for a year because he refuses to reveal his identity. So one day while looking for her brother, Ichiko goes into the forbidden tunnel. Kagura attacks her there since she’s alone but lo & behold oniichan comes to the rescue! They run to the abandoned Okunezato shrine and he tells her the truth about everything.  In the hidden valley of purple flowers, red ones grow every year and the amount of red ones determines how many undeads will awaken that summer. He’s an undead himself,  but unlike the rest,  he’s killed a certain kind of “bait” which gave him eternal life and completely removed anymore murderous cravings. Also he’s been a zombie so long he gets joy seeing these other zombies come back to Earth and then be killed by the ghostbusters. 😅 He reveals that zombies can only see monochrome so in Toa’s case, he was unable to tell the colors of the fireworks. The purple flowers and human blood are the only colored thing these zombies can see. 12 years ago it was another summer of ripe zombies to bloom from the purple flower valley and for shits & giggles Hanate followed her around. He found out she bought a kitchen knife so he realized she was ready to kill.  He followed her to the Okunezato shrine where 8 year old Ichiko was drawing on the ground with some chalk. That’s when Hanate realized that Ichiko had the special “soul full of life” which is a rare type but if one of the undead kills it, they basically are set for life and never have to kill again. (The same one that he killed to grant him eternal life status.) It’s like the undead lottery!

Unfortunately for Ichiko she’s the winning ticket which is why she’s a zombie magnet. ( ˘•ω•˘ ) Suddenly Hanate threw his popcorn aside and decided instead of watching Ichiko get brutally murdered, he must SAVE HER! He then posed as a delivery boy to distract Ichiko and send her home. He also made up his name to her on the spot and she called him Hanate oniichan. So yeah, he’s not actually her brother. He’s lived for thousands of years changing the memories of those around him so nobody would think of him as “unusual”. So then one of the zombies who was caught trying to attack Ichiko babbled about her being “bait” thinking they’d go easy on him but they killed him anyway.  From then on they basically monitored Ichiko and gave her the nickname “Albino” because she was “rare” and because of her eyes. When you take a photo her eyes will almost always look red – and the “red” in her eyes is what basically attracts the zombies to her. Eventually Hanate realized that he and the flowers are one and they will continue to bloom as long as he’s there. He also reveals that Kagura was a gross pedo since high school and had his eyes set on Ichiko ever since she was a loli. (ㅍ_ㅍ) He ended up pushing her into the lake and she nearly drowned had Hanate not come back and given her air mouth to mouth. Realizing Ichiko is like raw meat in a lion’s den, he decided to bring her out of the town asap. He has the powers to change people’s memories so he made it so Ichiko would think he’s her real brother. That’s why she had forgotten all the memories of the past with all the guys she met at Okunezato. In a strange turn of events,  Hino ended up moving to their town and went to see Ichiko like hey long time no see! But due to Hanate’s brainwashing she didn’t remember Hino at all.

Hanate then made it so she would remember that she and Hino were friends since elementary school and that she’d have no memories of Okunezato at all. So then 10 years went by and Hanate got worried that something might happen to his flowers which would ultimately affect his body too. He decided to return to Okunezato to check up on them. Before leaving,  he made Hino promise to protect Ichiko in his place. When he returned to Okunezato most people forgot who he was because his powers only last as long as they are “active”. By being away from the town for so long, it became inactive and left everyone’s minds.  Realizing he doesn’t have much time,  Hanate decided to take care of business and reunite with Ichiko asap before the same memory lapse happened to her. When he got to the flowers he was relieved to see them blooming fine – that is until the ninja ghostbusters got to him. They captured him and tortured him asking him questions on who he is, where he came from and what he was doing at that flower valley. They tried to look for marks on his back to see if he was a zombie but…..because he killed a “bait” similar to Ichiko many years ago,  all markings had disappeared. They locked him up for a year but a year to him was like a brief nap. However all that changed when he heard them mention Ichiko’s name. Hanate then broke out of there to come to her. After hearing all this Ichiko is in disbelief but he’s like look at me.  I’ve looked the same for 12 years! 😂 Ichiko goes into brocon mode lamenting that she only loves oniichan but he’s like gurl pls I’m an undead ghost zombie! She jumps into his arms and as they hug for hours, all her memories with Hanate begin to return back to her. He warns her that Kagura, who pushed her off a bridge as a child,  is back from the dead to attempt to kill her one more time.  This is all because she’s got a soul cursed by the Iwanagahime. Because of her, every summer the purple flowers bloom and bring souls back from the dead.  Just then outside the shrine they see Toa and Hanate points out that he’s a zombie who’s come to find a place to die.

After Toa leaves with an angry Yua, Hanate says that they can’t return back home because Kagura might follow them there. Unlike most undeads,  he enjoys being one. Ichiko realizes that Hanate loves her and she feels the same way but is like are you sure you wanna be with me when I become a wrinkly old grandma?? He wakes her up in the middle of the night warning her that Kagura is hot on their heels.  They decide to climb through the mountains to get out of town on the other side. They end up making a stop at the purple flower valley but that’s when Kagura ambushes them. Hanate realizes that at this rate Ichiko will be doomed to be hunted by zombies for the rest of her life. He then decides to set the flowers on fire while Kagura bitches that he and Hanate should be eternal life bros. The 2 get into a scuffle and Hanate yells at Ichiko to set the flowers on fire. She goes to grab the box of matches but drops it crying that she can’t do it. Just then Hino comes running and without hesitation he sets the flowers on fire. Kagura disappears immediately and Hanate says once all the flowers burn he’ll be gone as well.  He tells Ichiko not to worry cause once he’s gone all memories of him will disappear from her mind. Hino acts like a bro, steps out and lets the Ntr kiss scene happen behind him.  😂😂😭😭 Hanate vanishes into a rain of petals and all memories of him disappear. As Hino tells her the police has come to help get them out, they both realize Ichiko is crying but no idea why. In the epilogue, Ichiko returns to her college life living alone since her parents are overseas as usual. As she leaves the house she hears a voice say “have a nice day” and the game zooms in on a small purple flower growing in her backyard. 😭😭😭😭😭 Honestly I’m very sad about Hanate because most of his route was just a text dump. I wish we got more time or flashbacks of the time he and Ichiko spent in the 10 years they were together. I wish there was more details given on why the hell Kagura was so crazy and why he came back as a “photographer”. Also I wish they explained why Hanate felt the urge to protect Ichiko all of a sudden or why she was so in love with him (especially if she thought he was her real brother the whole time??) Just small details they could have done to make his route more solid. Also I’d be lying if I didn’t say I almost typed “Masato” while writing notes on Hanate because too many Midorikawa oniichans these days 😂😂😂😂.

If they just put a little more time into this game I think it would have really been one of the best games I’ve played this year. I really enjoyed the overall plot, that scary summer inaka feeling, and the mystery solving portion. If they just put a bit more into the routes, especially Hanate, it could have been so much greater than it was. That said, it was a million times better than this hot mess. (Though that game had 2 of the same seiyuus and I do miss the dummy head mic kissing ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)) I somewhat regret not getting the limited edition because I feel like I wanted to know more about the characters for things like birthdays/ages etc. Based on what the game revealed Ichiko, Toa and Hino are probably 20, Sousuke maybe 21, Yuzuki probably 25-26, Isora 16-17, and Yuki admitted to being 13. Although on the topic of Yuki, we barely found out anything about him!  There was only a small revelation about him, but in the end it didn’t really matter that much. The “TIPS” in the game were actually quite interesting and a lot of random important info is hidden in them – which honestly I wish they just added to the game dialogue instead. The OP song was catchy but the OP movie looks like some Japanese Karaoke booth video. The CGs were decent but I feel like the coloring style didn’t quite work with Kurahana’s designs so some of them looked a bit awkward. (This was basically the same issue in the original UtaPri game which then they basically completely redrew with some Nippon Ichi Soft copycat artist.) Some of the “CG Choices” were just bust shots too so those were a bit of a disappointment as well. The one thing I thought was cool though were all the cinematics. They really helped set the mood of a lot of the scenes and would be a welcome addition to the standard of any new otome games. As far as the heroine…meh lol. She shined in Yuzuki’s route, and was cute when she was younger, but I feel that as she got older  it was just mostly damsel in distress. That said, because of ~spoilers~, I guess it can’t be helped that she’s a damsel in distress. It wasn’t as bothersome except in oniichan’s route where it was just so over the top that it was laughable. 😂😂 The guys themselves were super adorable though, all of them, so  I couldn’t care less about  Ichiko jumping into their arms because tbh I wanted to do the same. 😂😂😂 Oh and it was nice to have the guys call out her name if you left it default. Otomate has been making this a standard in most of their games now and I hope other companies catch on this trend.

The only other weird thing I found was that the default keys for the game were totally backwards but if you set it to the below screenshot it will follow Otomate’s “Standard” keyset so I recommend doing so since that’s what I was used to with their games.

Overall while the game has flaws and I wish they put more meat into it, I think the story is pretty solid and interesting and definitely worth the play, if for the mystery aspect and the moe dudes themselves. I ended up crying in the end realizing that in order to keep the story canon though, there will never be a fandisk. (´；д；`)ﾌﾞﾜｯ Oh and for play order the game kinda forces it on you but it’s basically Hino→Isora→Toa→Sousuke→Yuzuki→[____’s True End]→Hanate.